BREAKING NEWS: North Dakota Prosecutor Seeks "Riot" Charges Against Amy Goodman For Reporting On Pipeline Protests

Breaking news from Democracy Now!:

North Dakota Prosecutor seeks “riot” charges against Amy Goodman

New charges have been filed against Democracy Now!'s Amy Goodman for filming the attack on Dakota Access Pipeline protesters.

Bismarck, North Dakota—A North Dakota state prosecutor has sought to charge award-winning journalist Amy Goodman with participating in a “riot”  for filming an attack on Native American-led anti-pipeline protesters. The new charge comes after the prosecutor dropped a previous criminal trespassing charge against Goodman.

State’s Attorney Ladd R. Erickson filed the new charges on Friday, October 14 with District Judge John Grinsteiner, who will decide on Monday, October 17 whether probable cause exists for the riot charge.

Amy Goodman has traveled to North Dakota to face the charges and will appear at Morton County court on Monday October 17, at 1:30 pm local time (CDT) if the charges are approved.

In an e-mail to Goodman’s attorney Tom Dickson on October 12, State’s Attorney Erickson admitted that there were "legal issues with proving the notice of trespassing requirements in the statute."

The charge in State of North Dakota v. Amy Goodman stems from Democracy Now!’s coverage of the protests against the Dakota Access pipeline.

On Saturday, September 3, Democracy Now! filmed security guards working for the pipeline company attacking protesters. The report showed guards unleashing dogs and using pepper spray and featured people with bite injuries and a dog with blood dripping from its mouth and nose.

Click here to see Democracy Now!'s exclusive report, which went viral online—it was viewed more than 14 million times on Facebook and was rebroadcast on many outlets, including CBS, NBC,NPR, CNN, MSNBC and the Huffington Post.

On September 8th, a criminal complaint and warrant was issued for Amy Goodman's arrest on the trespassing charge.

"I came back to North Dakota to fight a trespass charge. They saw that they could never make that charge stick, so now they want to charge me with rioting, " said Goodman. "I wasn’t trespassing, I wasn’t engaging in a riot, I was doing my job as a journalist by covering a violent attack on Native American protesters."

“Filming Native Americans being violently attacked as they defend their land is not rioting, it’s called journalism, it is protected by the First Amendment, and indeed, it is an essential function in a democratic society,” said Professor Katherine Franke, Chair of the Board of the Center for Constitutional Rights.

The pipeline project has faced months of resistance from the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and members of over 100 other tribes from across the U.S., Canada and Latin America.  Click here to see our complete coverage of the pipeline and the protests.

Tune in Monday to Democracy Now! (stream live at democracynow.org at 8am ET or check your local listings for broadcast times) and look for updates on our website at DemocracyNow.org.

Update on October 15, 2016 by admin

Lizzy Ratner in The Nation has published an article, "Amy Goodman Is Facing Prison for Reporting on the Dakota Access Pipeline. That Should Scare Us All."

Josh Fox, famed filmmaker of Gasland and Gasland II, also published an article at The Nation, "The Arrest of Journalists and Filmmakers Covering the Dakota Pipeline Is a Threat to Democracy—and the Planet."

Fox himself was arrested while filming for his documentary Gaslands II -- arrested by the U.S. Capitol Police on the Hill, by orders of a pro-fracking committee chairman, at a supposedly public hearing.

Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone has also published a powerful defense of Amy Goodman's 1st Amendment right to practice "freedom of the press" journalism.

Senators Ask President to Halt Construction of Dakota Access Pipeline

As posted on the website of U.S. Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA):

WASHINGTON, Oct. 13 – Senators Edward J. Markey, Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Ben Cardin (D-Md.) sent a letter to President Barack Obama Thursday requesting the administration halt construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline until affected tribes are consulted and a full environmental review is conducted.

“In light of the decision of the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to reject the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe's request for a temporary halt to construction, the project’s current permits should be suspended and all construction stopped until a complete environmental and cultural review has been completed for the entire project,” the senators wrote. 

Over the past several weeks, hundreds of Native American tribes have mobilized to draw attention to the pipeline’s encroachment on sacred lands, bringing about a groundswell of opposition to the project.

“Until there has been full and meaningful tribal consultation, all pipeline permits and easements should be revoked or denied,” the members wrote.

The Department of Justice, Department of the Interior and Army Corps of Engineers previously requested that the pipeline company, Energy Transfer Partners, halt construction while an environmental and cultural impact review was conducted. The pipeline company declined to stop the project, and a federal circuit court gave a partial emergency injunction to halt construction. After hearing the full injunction argument, the court denied the Standing Rock Sioux tribe’s request to halt the project, a ruling that was affirmed Saturday by a federal appeals court.

The president can order the Army Corps to conduct a full review of the pipeline.

“If there is one profound lesson that indigenous people have taught us, it is that all of us as human beings are part of nature,” the senators wrote. “We will not survive if we continue to destroy nature.”

Click HERE to read the letter.

Indigenous Peoples Condemn Nuclear Colonialism on ‘Columbus’ Day

Ian Zabarte, NCAC

[Beyond Nuclear has been honored and privileged to be invited to present at this event in Las Vegas, Nevada.]

For immediate release: October 10, 2016

Contact: Ian Zabarte, Native Community Action Council
nativecommunityactioncouncil@gmail.com, (702) 203-8816
www.nativecommunityactioncouncil.org

Indigenous Peoples Condemn Nuclear Colonialism on ‘Columbus’ Day

Note to editors: Photos attached credit: Clean Up The Mines.

High resolution video of the press conference available, youtube link here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZucOzTDusU&feature=youtu.be

Sarah Fields, Uranium Watch and Sierra Club Nuclear-Free CampaignLas Vegas, NV — Indigenous rights and environmental advocates from throughout the US condemned nuclear colonialism on what is recognized as “Columbus Day” Tuesday, October 11, 2016. Native Community Action Council held a press conference in front of the Thomas and Mac Moot Court at the Boyd Law School on the campus of UNLV for participants in the Native American Forum on Nuclear Issues at UNLV.

Since 1951 the US and UK have conducted nuclear testing within Western Shoshone homelands causing a wide variety of adverse health consequences known to be plausible from exposure to radiation in fallout. The proposed Yucca Mountain high level nuclear waste repository, if licensed, will add significant risk factors to the lives of the Western Shoshone and Southern Paiute people. According to Ian Zabarte, Secretary of the Native Community Action Petuuche Gilbert, Indigenous World Association, Laguna and Acoma Coalition for a Safe Environment & MultiCultural Alliance for a Safe EnvironmentCouncil (NCAC), “Due to lifestyle differences, Native American exposure to radiation in fallout is significantly higher that the nearby non-Native Americans. This is our primary contention at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing of Yucca Mountain.”

Yucca Mountain, in the heart of the Western Shoshone Nation, is also a sacred site for Shoshone and Pauite peoples.

Because of U.S. nuclear testing in Nevada, the Western Shoshone Nation is already the most bombed nation on earth. They suffer from widespread cancer, leukemia, and other diseases as a result of fallout from more than 1,000 atomic explosions on their territory.

“When the US has over 15,000 abandoned uranium mines, it makes no sense to continue making more radioactive waste when we have nowhere to put it,” says Leona Morgan (Diné/Navajo), of Diné No Nukes. “Instead of spending billions of dollars on weapons modernization and subsidizing aging nuclear reactors, we need to start using those funds to clean up contaminated areas. It starts by leaving uranium in the ground.”

Leona Morgan, Diné No Nukes“Colonization isn’t just the theft and assimilation of our lands and people, today we’re fighting against nuclear colonialism which is the theft of our future,” states Morgan.

According to the US Geological Survey, Nevada also has 315 abandoned uranium mines located throughout the state.

Tom Goldtooth, Executive Director of the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) who has been at the forefront of the fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline states, “Traveling here to the forum from the frontline of the Oceti Sakowin Sacred Stone camp in North Dakota, I see a link between nuclear and CO2 colonialism. Our Native Nations are on the frontlines fighting a colonial energy system that does not recognize treaties and Indigenous rights, our spiritual cosmologies and the protection of water of life. The link here is a world digging up uranium. In the northern plains, there’s uranium in coal with dust particles that are radioactive. There’s even radioactivity within hydro-fracking waste. Water is being contaminated and it’s flowing into the Missouri River. Spirituality is very important as an organizing tool for us, within an industrialized world that has no understanding of the indigenous natural laws that guide our traditional indigenous societies. It’s a systems change challenge we are dealing with, that will require all people, all cultures to work together,” says Goldtooth, who just came to the forum from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe's standoff in Cannonball, North Dakota where 27 people were arrested today for standing against the proposed pipeline. [See Beyond Nuclear's Human Rights website section for updates on the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe resistance, including what you can do.]

Tom Goldtooth, IEN“Uranium is a very dirty and very dangerous fuel, nuclear has never been green. We want uranium to be left in the ground. The whole nuclear fuel cycle needs to be shut down,” states Petuuche Gilbert (Acoma), president of Indigenous World Association, Laguna and Acoma Coalition for a Safe Environment & MultiCultural Alliance for a Safe Environment, “We’re still surviving the legacy of Columbus as it so prevalent in US laws and policies. We’re still countering the principle of doctrine of discovery. We’re still being dispossessed of our land rights by the nuclear industry: from uranium mining to storage of nuclear waste, this is ongoing colonialism. There are laws in place to protect Native American rights, but they are undermined because of antiquated laws like the 1872 mining act which discriminate against Native people,” states Gilbert.

Uranium mining is also threatening the Grand Canyon where Canyon Mine is currently drilling for uranium 6 miles from the South Rim of the canyon. The mine also is adjacent to Red Butte which is a site held sacred by the Havasupai Nation.

Spiritual leader of Western Shoshone Nation and internationally renowned anti-nuke advocate Corbin Harney once said, “By ourselves we are not so strong, but together, as one people, nothing can stop us. Our Mother Earth is relying on us. Please join us with your thoughts, prayers and actions.” Harney passed on from cancer in 2007.

The Native American Forum on Nuclear Issues continues tomorrow Tuesday, October 11 at Boyd Law School on the campus of UNLV from 8am until 4pm. A media event will be held at the same courtyard at 12pm.

Resist Spectra solidarity action with Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, at AIM fracked gas pipeline near Indian Point

As reported by the Journal News, four Resist Spectra protectors occupied an AIM fracked gas pipeline for 16 hours, blocking construction just hundreds of feet from the Indian Point nuclear power plant, on the bank of the Hudson River near New York City.

The non-violent civil disobedience action, which ended with arrests and trespassing charges against the four, as well as their support team, was held on Indigenous Peoples Day, as a solidarity action in support of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe's resistance to the Dakota Access crude oil pipeline in North Dakota.

Spectra's AIM fracked natural gas pipeline is located immediately adjacent to the two Indian Point reactors, near New York City. This raises the specter of a large-scale natural gas explosion and/or fire, plunging the Indian Point reactors and their high-level radioactive waste storage pools, into meltdown mode.

More than 20 million people live or work within a 50-mile radius of Indian Point, with little to no prospect of being able to evacuate in an emergency.

As documented by Dr. Ed Lyman of Union of Concerned Scientists in a 2004 report entitled "Chernobyl on the Hudson?", a catastrophic release of hazardous radioactivity would result -- depending on weather conditions -- is more than 40,000 acute radiation poisoning deaths; more than 500,000 latent cancer fatalities; and property damage measure in the trillions (yes, with a T!) of dollars.

Law enforcement from multiple states descend on Native American water protectors/land defenders

PIPELINES: A Wisconsin county sheriff says his decision to send deputies to help with Dakota Access pipeline protests in North Dakota is “about public safety.” (WISC-TV) [from today's Midwest Energy News]